Courtesy photos Haircutters pose for a photo at Charizma Hair Salon. They gave free haircuts to back-to-school children on Aug. 7. Children get their hair cut at Charizma Hair Salon on Sunday, Aug. 7. A free haircutting event was held for back-to-school children.

MONTE VISTA — Barber Horacio Naranjo was excited about the back-to-school hair cutting event at Charizma Hair Salon in Monte Vista on Sunday, Aug. 7. The all-day event went until 5 p.m.

Eight haircutters came together under one roof to give 61 children free haircuts before going back to school this month

“The idea came from TSJC (Trinidad State Junior College),” said Naranjo. “TSJC was going to have a huge back-to-school event for Valley kids and give kids free haircuts to help parents and students out. They had invited a ton of barbers to participate in the event, myself included, but they had to cancel. We had been talking about this event forever, telling all our clients about the event, we were super excited and suddenly it wasn’t going to happen. My partner who works with me, Edgar Borunda, was supposed to attend the event, too. I knew I had to do something because I really wanted to help people and children out. I decided to try to have the event in Monte Vista and it just worked out.” 

Naranjo has been a hair cutter for about 13 years now and earned his degree and became licensed about 5 years ago. Naranjo explained that it was something that he always wanted to do, and was proud to open his shop, Stretches’ Barber Shop in Monte Vista.

“I knew my shop was too small for the event, but I contacted Donna Davis from Charizma Hair Salon and told her, you know they canceled the event, but this is something I still want to do, I want to give back to the community and help Monte Vista out,” Naranjo said. “Donna was all for it, she’s a great person. I also contacted a few other people that were going to go to the event in Alamosa, and they showed up without hesitation, this is definitely something that was a collaborative effort.” 

Naranjo was surprised that word traveled fast, and they had a total of 61 kids show up to get haircuts for school.

“This event was awesome, the kids were happy, the parents were grateful. TSJC was going to give out school supplies and we wanted to do the same, but we just didn’t have the time,” Naranjo said. “We are looking into doing that soon, giving kids school supplies. All of us we like to help, we felt like we gave back to our community. We appreciate the business and for me, honestly, I was teary-eyed when I thought about how many kids and families we helped. It meant a lot to me to give back. Monte Vista is such a wonderful place to live, and we have a good community. You know when you have done something right when you see kids with their hair freshly cut and excited to go back to school, and we did that for them and didn’t charge them. It’s a good feeling to help families out and I want to thank everyone who participated and was there to help with the kids.” 

Daniel Barbosa of Center took his son, Felipe, to get his hair cut at the event on Sunday. 

“School supplies and clothes aren’t cheap,” Barbosa said. “This really helped me out. I had never heard of any other shop that did this, and it was cool to see how many kids were there and how much the gente (translates to people in English) really appreciated this haircutting deal that they had for the kids. Thank you to the barbers. From a parent who doesn’t have a lot, this really helped me a lot. Thank you.”